#population decline

#population decline

Not to work specific jobs. Not to invest. Just to be under 35 and breathe their air. Applications open next month and nobody knows about it. The island is dying. Average age hitting 50. Schools closing. Businesses can't find workers. Portuguese kids all fled to Lisbon or London. So now they're paying foreigners to come save their island, and Americans are sleeping on it while competing for $3,000 studio apartments in Austin.

On a clear but chilly autumn day, Poa Pohjola and her partner Wilhelm Blomberg are relaxing in their Helsinki apartment while their baby naps outside on the balcony, in traditional Finnish style. "They sleep very well outside, in colder degrees, I think," Pohjola said with a laugh. "Or, that's how I grew up thinking." Pohjola is 38 and Blomberg is 35. They've been together for about three years, and they started talking about having a baby early on - even though Pohjola had once thought she might never have kids.

Sliwa - who was born in New York City, founded the Guardian Angels in 1979 and says he'll "die in this city" - is the current underdog in the race for mayor. A recently released Quinnipiac University poll found that Democratic Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani leads with 46% of likely voters backing him, followed by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo with 33% and Sliwa with 15%.

Depopulated towns in Germany's ex-communist east have come up with a novel scheme to bring back life: offering people several weeks of super-cheap housing to give would-be residents a taste of the place. The "trial-living" scheme aims to revitalise half-deserted communities as Germany nears the 35th anniversary of its reunification on October 3rd. One of those giving it a shot is Weslawa Goeller, 50, a kindergarten educator with a two-year-old daughter who is getting to know the small town of Guben on the Polish border.

Russian president Vladimir Putin was caught chatting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping - about the light topic of organ transplants, and how they could let "us live younger and younger, and perhaps even achieve immortality." As ABC News reports, the comments were overheard on a hot mic attached to Putin's interpreter, who was translating his words into Mandarin at a parade in Beijing this week commemorating the end of World War II and showing off fearsome new Chinese military might.

The practice of selling homes for 1 euro to attract residents to remote areas is common in Italy, and is also emerging in France, though less frequently.

In recent years, the declining birth rate has sparked widespread concern among policymakers, prompting discussions about its socio-economic implications and potential long-term effects on society.